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Sauce

Anchovy and Butter

A savory butter sauce made by melting anchovies and mixing with butter, soy sauce, lemon juice, and espagnole sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and olive are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 11,922 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓

Anchovy and Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the anchovies

  1. Melt the anchovies in a little wine or vinegar without boiling.

  2. Dissolve anchovies in wine or vinegar.

  3. Rub garlic through a sieve.

Make the butter

  1. Add to melted butter with soy sauce.

  2. Pound anchovies with butter.

  3. Work the melted anchovies into the butter or any plain sauce.

  4. Mix with olive oil and salt to form a butter.

Finish the sauce

  1. Add warmed espagnole sauce and lemon juice.

  2. Adjust thickness with stock if needed.

  3. Strain.

  4. Mix just before serving.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Lemon + olivetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  2. Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Butter + olivetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,887 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  4. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

  5. Sauce + olivetop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together5,568 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Anchovies
Provide the salty, savoury backbone that flavours the whole butter.
Butter
Supplies fat and richness, carrying the anchovy flavour and giving a spreadable body.
Espagnole sauce
Adds body and savoury depth from its brown sauce base.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich butter and balances the saltiness.
Soy sauce
Adds extra savoury depth to reinforce the anchovy flavour.

The step that matters

Melt the anchovies without boiling. Gentle heat lets the anchovies dissolve evenly into the liquid and blend smoothly into the butter. Boiling can scorch the anchovies and make the flavour harsh and bitter.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, sauce, olive):

  1. Avocadofits better
  2. Coconutfits better
  3. Plumfits about as well
  4. Lemonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, sauce, olive. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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